World of Warcraft: Deflating the Game's Economy

World of Warcraft, as a MMORPG, is a persistent world subject to many concepts found in real life. One such concept, though simplified in some ways, is an economy based around the currency of gold. From the date of the game's release over time, more and more gold has flowed into the economy with numerous gold sinks, such as mount training, helping to prevent extreme inflation. Thus, while each expansion increased the total amount of gold in the game, the increase was gradual and well-maintained. Only recently, especially in Warlords of Draenor, has there been an observably significant increase in the price of goods and general size of gold-based revenue for players. While my case might not be indicative of the norm, my gold making methods, which make tens of thousands of gold per day now compared to the hundreds of gold per day of the past, resulted in unprecedented wealth.

To put it another way, I have observed the state of the in-game currency of gold over the course of many expansions, developing a keen experience in understanding how the economy of the game works (resources such as this helped immensely too). I found the wild inflation caused in Warlords of Draenor to be shocking to the point that it needs to be dealt with in numerous ways. Blizzard seems to be well aware of the issue as well, given how heirloom prices were heavily reworked in 6.1 (compared to the prices that were set after Justice Points were removed) to make them more of a gold sink and acknowledging issues such as Garrisons being too rewarding. To further expand on this, I will suggest many solutions in an attempt to deflate the price of goods in-game by reducing the amount of in-game gold and gold revenue to more reasonable levels.

World of Warcraft: A New Old Alternative to Dungeon Finder

Update: I am aware Mythic Dungeons essentially accomplish what this suggestion does, but having it apply to all group dungeon groups with sufficient incentive (such as this, which is getting added in 6.2.3) may increase the chances of players forming groups without using the Dungeon Finder. It is worth mentioning the effectiveness of Mythic Dungeons incentivizing players to create premade groups is not fully realized yet and should be more apparent in Legion.

Since its introduction in Wrath, the Dungeon Finder has provided players with a convenient way to do dungeons from level 15 all the way up to 100. The convenience is further enhanced by bonus loot for queuing into a random dungeon along with a nice buff to some basic attributes. However, this convenience came at a price and creating premade groups through chat channels became a thing of the past. The introduction of features such as Challenge Mode and Mythic Dungeon dungeons helps to alleviate the issue somewhat. Unfortunately, they don't sufficiently negate Dungeon Finder's great benefits, which arguably sap the quality of social interactions and reduce the amount of them, since there's relatively less reason to talk to the complete strangers from another realm that you're likely to queue into compared to friends or players on one's own realm.

In short, what I'm trying to say is the Dungeon Finder could probably stand to be taken down a few notches in terms of how rewarding it is compared to contenders such as premade groups that don't use the feature. In the interest of promoting social interactions in World of Warcraft, I think incentivizing the creation of premade groups, thus motivating players have to chat in public channels to find a group, to serve as a more rewarding alternative to the Dungeon Finder is an ideal suggestion.

The Suggestion

Firstly, here's some suggestions to change Dungeon Finder in preparation for this new (old) system:

• Remove the Luck of the Draw buff entirely. If dungeons are too difficult for Dungeon Finder groups, consider adjusting the dungeons themselves accordingly. This, however, should not be needed.
• This should remove the extra power players get by queuing into Dungeon Finder, which could potentially trivialize the content.
• Remove stacked decks. These award a lot of money that further to inflate a gold-rich economy due to sources such as garrison missions. In addition, premade group benefits should be shifted more towards the new system.
• Also, with the removal of Luck of the Draw, the stacked decks, which were effectively compensation for possibly willingly reducing the effect of the buff to create a premade group for Dungeon Finder, are no longer needed.

Now for the implementation of the new feature:

• If a group of players enters a dungeon manually without using the Dungeon Finder and kills bosses (or completes objectives) within the dungeon, they earn increased experience and other bonus rewards (money for lower level dungeons, non-gold currencies for max-level dungeons - it must be noted that the currencies have to have a high level of relevance and demand).
• This group does not have to be a full group of five, but ideally should at least require three players to earn benefits.
• Alternatively, increased benefits scale with the number of players in the group (meaning if one does the dungeon solo, they earn minimal increased benefits, since the system is about incentivizing grouping up).
• An additional bonus reward for killing each boss is an increased amount of loot, regardless of the loot system in use (for example, a boss can group two items instead of one on a standard group loot system).
• Upon completion of the dungeon in such a group, all players in the group earn significant bonus rewards, preferably not in the form of money and at least double of what the Dungeon Finder's Random Dungeon award is or some other significant reward.
• For example, a suitable alternative reward for all players involved could be a Call to Arms bag with other currencies instead of gold.
• Provide additional bonuses for groups made within the same realm or realm cluster (for merged realms). These should have enough significant to tempt players to further consider using public chat channels to group up, but not so much that lower populace realms get "screwed over" so to speak.
• An example reward could be a lesser satchel similar to the Call to Arms bag that contains some extra loot once the dungeon is finished, plus slightly increased benefits for each boss killed.
• The general idea of all these benefits is to intentional inconvenience one must go through compared to using the Dungeon Finder. To put it another way, one is rewarded greatly for not following the path of least resistance.

The benefits of this system are that:

• It may be a better option for Damage Dealers, since they usually have longer queues.
• It may also be a good option for newer players who don't want to deal with Dungeon Finder for some reason, such as a negative experience (berated for being a newb, for example) or anxiety.
• It allows players to explore the world and know where dungeon entrances are, making corpse runs far less of a hassle in cases where players don't instantly revive at the entrance to the dungeon (this mostly applies to older dungeons).
• Speaking of this, some corpse runs could use improvement, such as for Burning Crusade dungeons. Running back to the Blood Furnace from Thrallmar is exceptionally inconvenient compared to most corpse runs, for example.
• It allows players to hold each other more accountable compared to the Dungeon Finder. While there won't be any option to vote to kick, getting removed from a premade group is far more punishing due to the time it will probably take to find another group, making misbehavior less likely.
• The likelihood decreases further in a group of players from the same realm, since the players all might know each other and if not, bad reputations can spread across a realm (though this is not a behavior I condone since technically it violates the Terms of Use).
• Ideally, the higher level of accountability will curb negative behavior and thus negative social interactions should be reduced, improving the quality of them.
• As mentioned above, this system should spark some chat activity as players look for groups, thus increasing the quantity of social interactions. It may also make players more amicable towards each other in the process of a shared desire of earning major rewards.

Final Statements

I would like to think this suggestion would make an impact on the group gameplay were it to be implemented. It builds on an existing option of convenience by adding another option that compensates for inconvenience while promoting social interaction. Aside from the single notable nerf, there shouldn't be much change to the Dungeon Finder meaning those who wish to avidly use it shouldn't be affected much. Regardless, feedback is strongly appreciated, as it is with anything I happen to publish.

My Current Ideals (for WoW)

There's no denying that World of Warcraft has a special place in my heart. A huge chunk of this blog is dedicated to analysis and (hopefully) constructive criticism of the game and prior to that, it was one passion project after another taking the form of Wowhead threads. While the passion has somewhat dampened down, I would like to think it has become more refined in a way as time has passed. With this refinement comes some ideals that I'm likely to utilize when publishing analysis or constructive criticism related to World of Warcraft. Here are the current ideals that largely help to drive my analysis and criticism - I want to:

Improve the social state of WoW from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective.

As I mentioned in this recent article, which is a large part of why I'm writing this article at all, I put great value into the social experience in World of Warcraft because players are effectively content in this type of experience (hence the term, MMO). In terms of quality, I'm generally referring to improving social interactions between players healthier by promoting positive interaction as reasonably as possible. Suggestions that involve increasing the size of the playerbase and providing more incentive for players to socially interact are some examples of improving the social state of World of Warcraft in terms of quantity.

Utilize less drastic changes that preferably do not defy thematic when relevant. A preferred method for doing so is to use existing in-game concepts in some way.

The reasoning for this is explained somewhat in my article on making (more) reasonable suggestions, but the general idea of this philosophy is to attempt to make suggestions that hopefully won't require a lot of work to implement (following the path of least resistance as best as possible so to speak). By utilizing existing concepts, like I attempted in my suggestions for the Hunter class a while ago, it's a matter of copying and pasting at least some amount of existing code, which helps to cut down on the workload. Also, it may help to make suggestions more specific since a given concept will generally be of limited use, which in itself is helpful since players are more likely to make more general (and possibly drastic) suggestions (such as splitting PvP and PvE).

As for the remark on thematic, contradicting thematic or creating a nonsensical one (or perhaps even a reasonable one for nonsensical reasons) may contribute to a reduction in immersion, which can contribute to a lesser game experience (for example, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for Hunters to summon demons).

Err on the side of consumer friendliness when it's relevant (within reason).

This should rarely come up when discussing game mechanics, but occasionally I'll criticize a consumer-unfriendly practice by Blizzard, generally focusing on World of Warcraft-related ones. This is because the practice is likely to be harmful in the long term due to reasons such as players being driven off by excessive pricing of goods and services or otherwise doing what one may perceive as a "cash grab." I would like to think that being consumer-friendly, especially in the gaming industry where there's numerous questionable practices that people may be becoming more wary of as time goes on, would be of great benefit to Blizzard both in terms of finances and public relations.

Respect the competition. Design concepts from other games and such could be of benefit.*

With great power comes great responsibility, and World of Warcraft's dominance in the MMORPG market is a form of great power per se. It can be argued that aside from this dominance, Blizzard themselves benefit from a sizeable, loyal following that effectively empowers them, providing far more leeway in terms of decisions both in and out of game that would be prone to driving away players in an unbiased circumstance, which I am inherently against.

Aside from these undertones of pushing consumer-friendliness and the like, drawing innovation from other titles that could realistically see use in World of Warcraft, such as transmogrification, could be of great benefit and also falls under the above philosophy of using existing concepts. In this case, however, the concepts come from another game.

To put all of this another way, while World of Warcraft is a special game in many ways, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be subject to the standards of game design, marketing, and so on, particularly in the MMORPG context.

Touch upon as many issues as possible (especially smaller ones) that may or may not relate to the above. Having as few issues reasonably possible is important to the health of the game.

World of Warcraft is a huge game that probably has numerous tiny bugs, oversights, and other issues that are left ignored. It is understandable to do this since larger issues take higher priority due to their higher levels of gamebreaking potential. Furthermore, based on the contents of the numerous hotfixes that occur, it's clear that there's some people at Blizzard hard at work on resolving more subtle issues. With that said, I try to point out smaller issues when I see them to help the process along. This philosophy also ensures that I try to vary what I analyze and criticize.

Be as clear and detailed as possible.

While it's understandable that being too detailed may lead to some confusion, I like to think it helps to alleviate it more. Also, it matches my tendency to be wordy.

Focus on addressing what I consider "core issues" with World of Warcraft. (Warning: May cause repetition in articles and other statements from myself.)

Including the aforementioned points that already cover core issues to some degree, these are currently what I consider core issues with the game:

• Poor business practices that harm the game state, company image, etc.
• Some of these issues technically have only an indirect effect on the game itself, but I consider this a core issue because if the company goes under, the game follows.
• A disturbing lack of healthy social interaction and community for a MMORPG.
• Poor player retention due to a variety of reasons including but not necessarily associated with the above, such as:
• A lack of focus on independent/solo "persistent" content, or content that has nearly endless replayability potential that could keep players engaged throughout the week.
• Lengthy intervals between major content additions.
• Numerous flaws that detract from the game being able to hook newer players in from a gameplay standpoint.
• And possibly more...

Final Statements

Hopefully this article provides a look into my perspective. I am aware that I have my biases despite attempts to be objective, so much like how I've refined my passion, these ideals will be refined by changing over time as needed. This means short of a dramatic overhaul of perspective, some edits to this article may be made periodically.